Cameroon (13,353 ft.) in the southwest is the highest peak in West Africa and the sixth in Africa.

The early European presence in Cameroon was primarily devoted to coastal trade and the acquisition of slaves.

Cameroon is an active participant in the United Nations, where its voting record demonstrates its commitment to causes that include international peacekeeping, the rule of law, environmental protection, and Third World economic development.

Politics of Cameroon takes place in a framework of a federal presidential republic, whereby the President of Cameroon is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system.

Cameroon' s first multiparty legislative and presidential elections were held in 1992 followed by municipal elections in 1996 and another round of legislative and presidential elections in 1997.

The president is empowered to name and dismiss cabinet members, judges, generals, provincial governors, prefects, sub-prefects, and heads of Cameroon's parastatal (about 100 state-controlled) firms, obligate or disburse expenditures, approve or veto regulations, declare states of emergency, and appropriate and spend profits of parastatal firms.

The outcome of the October 11 presidential election in Cameroon is a foregone conclusion.

Although the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC/CPDM) is unlikely to resort to the levels of electoral fraud that have marred previous elections in Cameroon (it may not need to), the inevitability and likely scale of Biya’s victory is the latest indication of serious deficiencies at the heart of Cameroon’sdemocratic dispensation.

The province that evaded it was North-West – the heartland of the SDF leadership.

Nearly all rank and file Union for Change supporters were beaten at the time of arrest, and most suffered beatings and extortion of money at the hands of police during their detention.

Magistrates in Cameroon are career civil servants responsible to the Minister of Justice, and thus are subject, particularly in political cases, to government direction.

Opposed to the Presidential Majority was the Union for Change coalition of parties supporting the chairman of the SDF Party, Ni John Fru Ndi, and his call for a limited, 2-year presidential mandate to implement democratic reforms and to convene a national conference.

At the head of the pack is the ruling DemocraticUnion of the Cameroonian People which won parliamentary elections in 2002 — also amidst allegations of voting irregularities.

The Social Democratic Front (SDF), the DemocraticUnion of Cameroon (Union démocratique du Cameroun, UDC) and the National Union for Democracy and Progress (Union nationale pour la démocratie et le progress, UNDP) are also vying for support — this amidst palpable animosity between Biya and the opposition.

Henri Hogbe Nlend, former secretary general of the Union of the People of Cameroon (Union des populations du Cameroun, UPC) and UNDP Vice-President Celestin Bedzigui are amongst those who supported Biya — but have since shifted their allegiance back to the opposition.

Cameroon President Paul Biya has been re-elected for a fifth term in office with more than three quarters of votes cast, according to results from nearly all polling stations, the minister for territorial administration said on Thursday.

John Fru Ndi of the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front, came second with 17.13 percent and Adamou Ndam Njoya of the CameroonDemocraticUnion came third with just 4.71 percent.

The only votes that remained to be included in the final count were from 43 polling stations in the southwestern region of Manyu and represented about 4000 of the country's 4.6-million registered voters, Yaya said.

It is also the name used by some militant elements of the Anglophone movement in Cameroon for a new nation that would result from the dissolution of the 1961 union of the Southern Cameroons with the Republic of Cameroon and the creation of a new independent state—Ambazonia (Krieger 1994, 617; Southern Cameroons Provisional Administration 2002).

The ruling authority in the country is the British Southern Cameroons Provisional Administration, created in Washington, DC on June 17, 2001, from a coalition of various liberation movements including the SCNC [Southern Cameroon National Council], SCARM [Southern Cameroons Restoration Movement] and Ambazonia” (Southern Cameroons Provisional Administration 2002).

The main opposition parties—the SDF, UNDP and the DemocraticUnion of Cameroon (UDC)—boycotted presidential elections, held in October 1997.

The RDPC, founded in 1945 as the Cameroon National Union (UNC), remains the most popular party, with support in the Christian-dominated central, southern and eastern regions.

Victorin Hameni Bieuleu of the Union of CameroonDemocratic Forces (UFDC); Fritz Pierre Ngo of the Cameroonian Ecologists Movement (MEC); Yondo Mandengue Black of the Social Movement for the New Democracy (MSND); Dominique Djeukam Tchameni of the Movement for Democracy and Independence (MDI).

The UK and Japan have donated 25,000 transparent ballot boxes to be distributed to the country's 23,000 polling stations.

Cameroon is a republic dominated by a strong presidency and has a population of approximately 16.3 million.

The law requires that unions register with the government, permitting groups of no less than 20 workers to organize a union by submitting a constitution, internal regulations, and nonconviction certifications for each founding member.

The union filed a request for annulment of the agreement with a Douala court, where the case was still pending at year's end.

Presided at by the SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi, the meeting was extended to members the Advisory Council, MPs and Mayors of councils managed by the SDF.

The NEC meeting also reflected on the recently created alliance signed between the SDF and the CameroonDemocraticUnion (CDU), in which the two parties committed to work together for the 2004 presidential elections.

The decision to present a unique candidate at the election was approved by the NEC which requested that steps be taken to broaden the coalition for other progressive political parties to join the ranks.

www.sdfparty.org /english/news/454.php (404 words)

afrika.no - Cameroon: So many candidates, so little enthusiasm(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

Biya, who heads the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais, RDPC), won more than 90 percent of the vote during the last presidential election in 1997, which was boycotted by the opposition.

What challenge there is to Biya is being provided by John Fru Ndi, head of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), and Adamou Ndam Njoya: head of the DemocraticUnion of Cameroon, and candidate for the Coalition for National Reconciliation and Reconstruction (Coalition pour la réconciliation et la reconstruction nationals, CRRN).

Cameroon's population is put at over 16 million, of which about eight million are apparently eligible to cast ballots.

www.afrika.no /noop/page.php?p=Detailed/6334&print=1 (878 words)

International EFL Cafe. Worldwide English travel abroad country information for Cameroon.(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

Political parties: Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) or its predecessor parties have ruled since independence.

While in the UN Security Council in 2002, Cameroon has worked closely with the United States on a number of initiatives.

The U.S. Embassy in Cameroon is located on Rue Nachtigal, Yaounde (tel: 237-22-25-89/23-40-14; fax: 237-23-07-53, B.P. 817, Yaounde.

Diarra would be in the country on June 17-25, convey Annan's personal and the UN's continued support for Cameroon’sdemocratisation process, and appeal for smooth and transparent elections, the UN added.

The team would "consider the arrangements for the elections, the overall electoral environment in which the elections are taking place and the poll, the count and the results process," the Commonwealth said.

Several other parties contesting the polls, including the Social Democratic Front, the National Union for Democracy and Progress, and the DemocraticUnion of Cameroon have expressed concern about possible irregularities in the voter lists in some parts of the country.

Provisional results indicated that the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) party won all the seats except the Kumba urban constituency, which was taken by the Social Democratic Front (SDF), the national broadcaster reported.

Cameroon's Supreme Court ordered fresh legislative elections in nine constituencies, with a total of 17 seats, because of irregularities during parliamentary polls held on 30 June.

The DemocraticUnion of Cameroon (UDC) retained five seats in the June elections, all of them in Noun, the home district of party president Adamou Ndam Njoya.

'Cameroon election riddled with fraud'(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

YAOUNDE - Cameroon's main opposition parties are calling for the central African country's presidential election, which veteran leader Paul Biya has been widely tipped to win, to be annulled, saying it was marred by rampant fraud.

Only 4.6 million of Cameroon's 16 million people were registered to vote, with many saying they saw no point in casting their ballot because Biya was bound to win.

The outcome of the vote was a foregone conclusion, the disillusioned voters said, partly because of disarray in the opposition, which failed to mount a united challenge to Biya, and partly because backers of Biya, who has been in power since 1982, would "cheat if need be" to ensure he won.

Yaounde - Authorities in Cameroon released from prison due to poor health a deputy and tribal chief convicted of participating in the murder of an opposition politician, a court clerk told reporters on Monday.

The deputy, (King) Doh Gahj Gwaniym III, who received a 15-year prison sentence in April for the murder of a local leader of the main opposition party, was freed on bail for health reasons, the clerk from Bamemda court, 450km east of the capital told reporters by telephone.

The sole deputy of the DemocraticUnion of Cameroon People (RDPC), Doh Gahj Gwaniym III was convicted of having participated in the murder of John Khontem, local member of the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) party, on the night of August 20, 2004, after a political meeting in Balikumbat.

The peace settlement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), signed in December 2002, has isolated the CNDD-FDD, which based some of its militias in the DRC with the support of the DRC government-backed Mayi-Mayi militias.

The South African troops deployed in Burundi on behalf of the African Union in 2003 may not be enough to avert conflict as their mandate allows them to use weapons only in self-defence.

It borders Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the south and east, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west.

Seydou Elimane Diarra, and observers from the African Union and the International Organization of French-speaking Countries hailed the climate of tranquillity that characterised the dual elections.

A few opposition political parties as well as one party of the presidential majority, the National Union for Democracy and Progress (NUDP), called for the nullification of the elections and lodged various petitions with the Supreme Court.

The National Union for Democracy and Progress picked up only one seat, the remaining seats going to two others opposition parties, the CameroondemocraticUnion and the Cameroon People's Union.

Since multi-party politics were reintroduced in Cameroon in 1991, the country has held two presidential polls û both of which were won by incumbent head of state Paul Biya.

His words are echoed by officials from the opposition DemocraticUnion of Cameroon (Union démocratique du Cameroun, UDC), who told IPS that voter lists ôare for the most part selective, and that they could ruin an opposition candidate's chances for success.”

Fru Ndi, who claims that he was cheated of the presidency in 1992, is reported as saying that Ndam Njoya's selection had not been democratic.

www.ipsnews.net /news.asp?idnews=25621 (924 words)

[No title](Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

With less than one month to go before the presidential election in Cameroon, a coalition of opposition parties announced their candidate for president on Wednesday.

Many people in Cameroon have called for an independent electoral commission, or non-partisan group, to organize the election since President Biya has in the past been accused of rigging elections.

On Sunday, one of the main opposition parties in Cameroon, the Social Democratic Front, announced that it had nominated John Fru Ndi to represent the party.